There is a lot of debate in online forums about whether indulging autogynephilic desires is addictive by nature or not. Some argue that there is nothing wrong or unhealthy about autogynephilia as a sexual orientation when men engage in autogynephilic behaviors in a healthy balanced way, especially if they are socially accepted and not mistreated by others. They might admit that there is potential to develop a sexual addiction to autogynephilia-related behaviors, no different from how someone who is heterosexual could develop a pornography addiction. I’ve written before on the distinction between autogynephilia as an orientation that someone may or may not want help dealing with, versus autogynephilic sexual addiction which someone may want help to overcome. Some of these people might not feel bad about having autogynephilic orientation itself, but desperately want help with the sexual addiction. See this post – Orientation and Addiction.
However, I want to argue here that autogynephilic behaviors are by nature inherently addictive and unhealthy. To do so, I will draw on the common experiences of men with autogynephilia, and also refer to some quotations from Richard F. Docter from his book, Transvestites and Transsexuals. I readily admit that this is the type of debate that is very difficult to show conclusive proof for one side or the other. A vast amount of research would need to be done, research which is very hard to obtain given the private nature of the subject, and given the very militant close-minded debate about autogynephilia itself. But to me personally, the points I will explain here are enough to make me believe that autogynephilic behaviors are by nature addicting.
Let me begin by sharing a definition of sexual addiction from addictionhelp.com:
Sex addiction occurs when compulsive behaviors around sex lead to damaging effects, an unbreakable habit, and an impact on a person’s daily life. When obsessive sexual thoughts and other common signs begin to overtake your daily life, a problem could be present.
Top 7 Warning Signs at a Glance:
– Obsessive sexual thoughts
– Engaging in risky sexual behavior
– Excessive pornography or masturbation
– Cheating or compulsive infidelity
– Skipping meaningful life events for sex
– Feeling shame or depression about sexual urges
– Withdrawal symptoms when abstaining from sex
Let’s look at some of the ways that acting on autogynephilic desire seems to be addictive.
Obsessive Thoughts and Behaviors
1. For most of us, crossdressing or engaging in autogynephilic fantasy or watching sissy hypnosis or reading transgender fiction is obsessive. We find it hard to stop thinking about it. Some of us desperately want to stop thinking about it, but our minds are fixed on it, obsessed with it. And when we do give in to the activities, the sexual pleasure and gender euphoria make us so fixated that we spend long periods of time giving in. Guys may waste a couple hours every day on this stuff, simply self-pleasuring or escaping reality. But the obsession and addiction can get so bad that guys may spend 9 hours straight reading transgender or erotic fiction, or watching crossdressing videos online, or watching trans porn. They may forget to use the bathroom, or forget to eat or drink because they are so consumed by autogynephilic fantasy. Crossdressing episodes may obsess a man for several days straight so that he is isolated from people for days, and doing no work for days, but just enjoying looking at himself and changing outfits constantly.
Thirst for Novelty
2. With sexual addiction, there is usually a drive for novelty, continuous new content and continuous new experiences. This is always seen in pornography addiction, and unfortunately the internet today provides near endless content so that novelty can always be obtained, thus keeping the person stuck in addictive pleasure. We’ve reached a point today that autogynephilic related content online is near endless as well, it’s impossible for one person to get through it all. And with the use of AI, novelty is now guaranteed continuously. Addiction to novelty is common among autogynephiles. Hear what Richard F. Docter says in his book,
The importance of the mirror as a desired, even necessary, device deserves comment. As Buckner (1970) has noted, it is through the reflected image of the pseudowoman that the young transvestite develops his “partner.” Nothing more clearly provides a clue into the experience of the transvestite than does the mirror. The cross dresser never wants to perceive himself as his male self in the mirror; he wants to see images, stimuli, and many variations of his dream girl. The mirror offers him endless reflections of his ideal pin-up; the one “girl” who will never reject or disappoint; a predictable, reliable partner in the adventures of sex.
With autogynephilia, we are constantly looking for new images, new feminine feelings, and new experiences. This kind of endless novelty is not possible in a healthy marriage, no matter how much a couple may try to spice up their sex life. For most couples, they have tried and true sexual practices that they enjoy together with a bit of variation here and there. In a healthy marriage, this is satisfying, and as a couple they are not on an endless quest for novelty. They are focused on each other, on the relationship, on the same partner rather than looking for new partners. It is enough to periodically change up the sexual positions, or engage in different activities for foreplay, change the clothing once in a while, or maybe make love in a different area of the house.
But with autogynephilia, since it is about love of self, and involves solo activities, it is far too easy to be able to always go after new images and experiences. Recently I read on Reddit someone talking about the great pleasure in creating different types of women to be each day. In other words, he can make love to himself as a woman, but each time as a different woman with a different personality and a different look and clothes. The average heterosexual man who is a sex addict fulfills his search for novelty by sleeping around with many different women or by lusting after a different woman online each day (or 20 different women in a longer pornography session). But the man with autogynephilia doesn’t have to go out and look for different women to try to romance. He doesn’t have to even try to find content online. He can create for himself all the different women he wants to be with. The ease of this immense custom sexual pleasure is very hard to resist and hard, if not impossible, not to get addicted to.
Escalation of Behaviors
3. The pursuit of novelty leads to escalation of the sexual activities. For those with heterosexual pornography addiction, escalation may be seen in beginning to act out in person. Unfortunately this leads some men to move into hiring prostitutes, or into rape. Escalation is also seen in looking at harder and more graphic types of pornography. It can then lead to other types of pornography based on different paraphilic interests. Some heterosexual men begin to search out new types of content, and eventually they get turned on by watching women having sex with other women, and being turned on by sadism and masochism in their pornography, or abusive violent pornography. There are abundant testimonies online about heterosexual porn addicts developing sexual tastes for new things. Our brains are more elastic than people tend to think. Read more at Your Brain on Porn for the science on this.
On this note, there happens to be a lot of testimony online, especially in the last few years, about heterosexual men addicted to porn who wanted to look for new types of content, and they ended up getting interested in trans porn. Anecdotally, this has led to some men getting completely fixated and addicted to sissy content rather than heterosexual porn, or to actually developing autogynephilia. This is controversial, with a lot of people saying that you can’t learn new sexual preferences. But I think you can learn new sexual preferences and desires when you expose yourself to new experiences and new sexual content. It’s true that 90-95% of the men I’ve talked to with autogynephilia did NOT get it from being first addicted to pornography, but seemed to have had it from a very young age. In fact, at least half of the men I’ve talked to with autogynephilia never had much of an interest in ever wanting to look at pornography. So I think it would be foolish to say that trans porn is the main cause of autogynephilia. But I also think it would be foolish to rule it out that someone could develop autogynephilia from porn addiction. Since sexual tastes fluctuate with age, technology, and culture, it’s hard to research and pin down. I’m open-minded but my default position is to believe the stories men share of never having had interest in crossdressing or autogynephilic desires, until their porn addiction gradually led them there.
Escalation is generally seen among men with autogynephilia in a similar way to men with pornography addiction. The addiction and pursuit of novelty leads to new sexual desires, and even perhaps new paraphilias. For example, take what I said in my post about transgender fiction:
“When I was reading these stories or searching for these stories I was always looking for the “harmless” ones that didn’t include pedophilia, incest, sadism, masochism, diapers, erotica, brutal forced crossdressing, domination, manipulation, rape, sissification, women being portrayed as bimbos, homosexuality, abuse, bestiality, and all sorts of other kinds of sexual immorality and paraphilias. What is disturbing and maybe surprising for some of you is that the vast MAJORITY of these stories include some of these things…. But I was so stuck in my addiction to crossdressing fiction that I read the stories anyway…… The deeper I got into my addiction, the deeper I went into my depravity. Stories that originally I would have immediately stopped reading started to become stories I would tolerate. Stories that I would tolerate, I eventually even became sexually turned on by. The more I exposed myself to such stories the more I tolerated certain things I thought were gross, and the more I tolerated them the more they started to turn me on slightly. My body and mind were learning new sexual desires and responses.”
Autogynephilic content escalates. The more you crossdress or read crossdressing fiction, the more you may be turned on by strange new things. You may eventually be turned on by pictures of men crossdressed, crossdressing stories with homosexual elements, and crossdressing stories with forced submission elements, humiliation, rape, incest, or a host of other things. For those who want to dress as women, they may begin to feel the need to do more and more. Before, crossdressing with clothing was enough. But now, these men need to take the hour to put on all the makeup. Before, the makeup was enough, but now these men need to shave their legs. Before, dressing at home was enough, but now these men need to be seen by others.
Crossdressing addicts may start dressing up and going out to clubs and flirting with men. Sometimes crossdressing will be combined with sexual activity with a female partner, but may also lead to homosexual sex with men. These addictions can become so all-consuming that the addict looks for new and different forms to quench the thirst. I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve talked to, who are heterosexual, but because of their autogynephilia, have found themselves plunging into addiction and having sex with unknown men in casual hookups, only to hate themselves afterwards for what they did that they never wanted to do. To read more about the escalation involved with autogynephilia and crossdressing read – Crossdressing demands sacrifice of self.
Risk Taking
4. The escalation is what drives the risk taking nature of sexual addiction. The sex addict will engage in increasingly unhealthy and damaging behaviors to further the addiction. Behaviors become more intense, frequent, or risky over time to achieve the same level of pleasure. Research has shown that crossdressers and men with autogynephilia take massive risks to experience the pleasures they thirst for, and are willing to risk all the things they value in their lives in the process. See what Richard F. Docter says in his book, Transvestites and Transsexuals:
Some TVs report that they have risked possible detection while cross dressed only to wonder in quieter moments how they could possibly have shown such poor judgment and such a lack of restraint. For some, there seems to be a weakening of reality testing associated with being cross dressed. Perhaps the experience of heightened arousal and excitement which seems to accompany the transvestic experiences of some also involves a “suspension of judgment” as one TV put it. However, it appears very apparent that the ability to test reality is not lost, as it would be in a psychotic episode or in drug intoxication. Rather, there seems to be a temporary pushing aside of caution, restraints, and clear thinking about the consequences of actions. The hindsight, reflective evaluation of some cross dressers is often expressed as something like, “I don’t know how I could possibly have taken such a risk …. “ Unusual risk taking seems to be most common in the early years of venturing out in public while dressed. For example, one TV said: “When I first started going out as Irma I felt I had to do things I would never do today, such as going to the same coffee shop ‘dressed’ where I have lunch every day.”
I’ve tried to counsel men who are utterly desperate for help after taking crazy risks. They don’t know how to remove their photos they put online that were already shared by others. They don’t know if they got STDs or HIV from their sexual encounters with unknown men that they can’t even follow up with, so they have to go get tested. They don’t know if they will lose their jobs because they didn’t get the work done they were supposed to do while working from home because they instead binged with their crossdressing activity. Or they realize that their pursuit of sexual immorality has emotionally wounded their wives to the point that their marriages may be beyond repair. Unfortunately, addiction has consequences.
Coping Mechanism for Life’s Pains and Stresses
5. Addictions are used as coping mechanisms to soothe our pains and stresses, and to temporarily escape from life. Using autogynephilic fantasy for this purpose is self-defeating. It is similar in some ways to a drug addiction. You feel depressed or stressed and you use crossdressing or online content to feel calm or comforted. But the device you are using to bring comfort also brings confusion, pain, and shame. So then you go back to the stress relief device, in this case crossdressing, to get temporary escape from those feelings through hedonistic pleasure. And the cycle keeps going. As we all know, addictions wreck lives. They don’t actually take away people’s pain. The right solution is to work through stress, understand your feelings, and look to healthy ways to meet your needs for rest and peace – through relationship with God, relationship with people, exercise, rest, sleep, etc. For a thorough explanation of this see the post – Crossdressing for Emotional Comfort
As with other addictions, the more a man engages in crossdressing and autogynephilia, the more shame he feels. It might be that nobody in his real life even knows what he is doing. But he himself knows, and he is ashamed of himself. His autogynephilia attacks at his maleness, his very self. It confuses his identity. He hates what he does, but he thirsts to keep doing it for the pleasure that it brings. See Nick’s post on the Shame Cycle.
Missing Life
6. As with all addictions, sexual addiction related to autogynephilia causes a person to miss out on life. A man finds himself making up excuses to not go on a family trip, so he can be home alone without his wife and his children, to crossdress for the weekend. A man tells his friends he is busy, so he can stay home and engage in hours of sissy hypnosis. A man uses all of his free time to read transgender fiction, so he pretty much gives up every other hobby he has. A man is in love with himself and pleasuring himself, and so sex with his wife fades away. A man has been secretly shaving his legs and painting his toenails so he avoids every activity with friends that might require wearing shorts or sandals.
Withdrawal
7. I’ve talked to so many men with autogynephilia who feel a tremendous sense of withdrawal when they try to quit crossdressing or other autogynephilic type of activities. They suddenly feel very depressed. They may not be able to find pleasure in any normal things in life – taking their dog for a walk, eating a favorite meal, spending time with a friend, or listening to their favorite music. This is a classic symptom of addiction. Most people know about the incredibly hard biological withdrawal side effects from giving up various types of drugs. But sexual addiction comes with withdrawal symptoms as well, due to the brain being accustomed to constant overly high dopamine levels. I have really appreciated Dr. Trish Leigh’s explanations of the dopamine withdrawal phases while giving up pornography addiction.
The withdrawal symptoms make addictions even harder to quit. But our brains can change and heal after sexual addiction. If you give yourself time, you will begin to enjoy life again and your brain can get back on balance in terms of dopamine. In this post I explain more on the brain, and share articles which talk about how our brain can heal from this. I see a lot of crossdressers argue that the withdrawal symptoms (which they use other terminology for), is what proves that the feminine identity is really a part of them, and their true self. They say they are depressed when not crossdressing because it’s stifling their real identity. And yet, the real explanation is far more simple. They are feeling withdrawal because they stopped getting the constant dopamine euphoria from crossdressing.
Secrecy and Deception
8. Today, there are more and more men with autogynephilia who are not hiding but rather embracing their paraphilia and making it public, hoping for social acceptance. This point may not fit for them. But for most men with autogynephilia, they keep their activities secret, and will even lie to family members or friends in order to keep indulging their secret activities and make sure no one will find out. This is another thing that is seen in most addictions. It can even lead to stealing just to keep people from knowing.
Purging and Repurchasing
9. I think every crossdressing blog and website has talked about the endless cycle of purging women’s clothes and repurchasing of clothes again. Purging is seen as a rite of passage that every crossdresser goes through. What they sometimes fail to see is that this is a common trait of addicts in general. Those addicted to alcohol will go through many attempts to quit, getting rid of all alcohol and all triggers for alcohol, only to relapse again, and binge again. Someone may quit many times, before being able to fully quit without relapsing. The same is true for pornography addiction, drug addictions, and really any kind of addiction. Somehow crossdressers always point to the purge cycle as evidence of a lack of self-acceptance, rather than seeing it as evidence of addiction. I’ve written about purging here.
Satisfaction Never Arrives
10. Another aspect of addiction is that deep satisfaction never arrives. You always need that one more fix. You always need more. This is what we see with autogynephilia. This is quite different from heterosexuality. When a man loves a woman and they have a healthy sex life, for the most part, he can be satisfied and not always feeling like he is one or two steps away from achieving satisfaction or his goal. To the contrary, with autogynephilia, no matter how much sexual pleasure and euphoria is attained, the goalposts continually move. There is always the potential for something more, for feeling like a more complete woman. You never quite attain your goal. In fact it is impossible to attain your goal, because you can’t actually become a woman, nor can you ever actually make love to yourself as a woman or even have a conversation with this other woman – See this post.
Crossdressing is based on deception, upon what is not real. What we desire through it is not attainable. We cannot be the beautiful perfect woman of our imaginings because that is not who we really are. That is a mirage, an illusion. To chase it is to enslave ourselves in an endless rat race.
Real meaning in life cannot be achieved by chasing sexual fantasies and sexual pleasure. Addiction cannot satisfy. Instead, I suggest giving up indulging your autogynephilia completely. You can live without it, and you can be happy without it. You can overcome the addiction. We offer help to those who want to quit and heal. To get started read this.
To learn contentment and get out of this endless struggle, please read this post – Integration and Contentment
Some people might say, “well I used to be this way, stuck in addiction, but once I transitioned, the sexual addiction went away.” To understand my view on that, please read this post.
I also want to share with you that for us here, we believe that the real ultimate meaning in life, and the only way to be eternally satisfied, is to know the Lord God, the creator of the universe. We are able to be reconciled to God through his Son Jesus Christ. We exist to know his love, and to love him. To worship him and to enjoy him. If you would like to talk to one of us or one of our volunteer pastors about God, to share your ideas and questions, and hear their thoughts, please let us know.
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